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by inexplicabletrousers



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I mean just a lot of angst, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Sad Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, darth tantrum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 08:14:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14256732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicabletrousers/pseuds/inexplicabletrousers
Summary: Ben tries to deal with Leia's death. Rey tries to help.





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Well buckle in for some pain friends. This is because I hate myself I guess and don't like nice things? I should return to Familiar Spirits soon enough, but this has been niggling at me so here you go.

The world was fire and blood now. There was nothing left to do but scream into the void; nothing left of him but the scream which filled and drained him all at once, the whirl of movement and the sparks in front of his eyes, in his eyes, behind his eyes. He yelled again, wordless and hoarse and again no response. Nothing. He needed some _ thing _ ,  _ any _ thing, any _ one _ ,  _ some _ one to respond, but there was nothing and he wasn’t there anymore. Just a tangle of limbs and lightsaber and rage and pain. 

 

Gone.

 

Never coming back.

 

Gone forever and you can’t ever go home because what can you call home when all that remains is a reclaimed ship and someone sworn to end you. 

 

Gone and you can’t say goodbye. 

 

Every thought was a wound he wrought into the panelling of the small room, even as the scars shifted onto, into, beneath his skin breaking, break ing, b r e a k i n g until all he was was a scar carved deeper and deeper into the black emptiness around and inside him. He dropped the saber and punched the wall itself, blood blossoming where the burning broken durasteel tore and his skin. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He felt the lives of people on board the star destroyer; people going about their lives and their days, hearts still beating, breath still in their lungs and he hated them. How dare they live while she had died? How dare anyone move forward? The world should have stopped, that moment in the debriefing when he had felt her slip away, heard her voice quietly in his head 

 

_ Ben.  _

 

One word and then crushing silence and emptiness where she should have been; where she should be. Hux had continued to speak as though nothing had changed, but everything had changed. The galaxy was lost, and he was adrift within it. No one had batted an eyelid when he left the room without a word. No one had come to look for him when the crashing started. This was normal for them, but they should  _ know.  _ This was different. This had no end. This was not the venting of momentary frustration, it was who he was now. It was who he was without her. Leia Organa-Solo had died and with her Ben Solo. Kylo was a scream of rage inhabiting and creating darkness, furious, hurting and lost. He punched the wall again, harder this time, dark blood slipping across split knuckles as he kept punching, punching, punching. ‘Ben!’ He span to see Rey before him, eyes red and agonised and agonising. He gritted his teeth, trying to force control over the swirling, boiling sea within him, but it was no good. ‘Get out.’ He spat, igniting his saber once more. The pain in Rey’s eyes deepened, but she stood firm. ‘You won’t harm me.’ She told him. What did she know. She was used to dealing with Ben Solo and he was gone now, for good. He advanced, slowly at first and then running. The saber would connect just as their fingers had all those months ago. He could end all of this, end her, end himself, end everything. The scavenger’s eyes widened, still so full of compassion and pity alongside the pain. He swung at her and she raised a saber he hadn’t seen before, bright white against the red of his own. She held him there, tears welling as he snarled and spat, more beast than man. She waited. He backed off momentarily, coming at her again and again and again. Still she held fast, never attacking, never making the first move just looking at him through those sad eyes. 

 

After a time he extinguished his blade, stumbling back confused and exhausted. Rey sat on the ground before him and spoke again. ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked up at her, still empty, still broken, still just a scream barely contained by flesh. ‘Fight back.’ He demanded through gritted teeth, jaw clenching and unclenching as he fought to speak with words and not just the guttural roar overwhelming his mind. Rey shook her head and he swallowed. ‘Then I’ll kill them. All of them. I will find you and I will hurt them, one by one, slowly, until you have nothing.’ He saw something harden in her. Good. She shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t.’ Whatever was left in him broke and he spluttered an ugly laugh, eyes still filled with tears. ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’ He met her eyes and she didn’t. He would, she realised. Of course he would. He would keep hurting and hurting and hurting until the whole galaxy was as broken as he was, so desperate was he to quell the loneliness he felt. Her tears spilled over and she shook her head. He rose again, igniting his saber and waiting. It was her turn to come at him, and she did not hold back. If she couldn’t make him see sense through compassion or pity, she would knock sense into him. She did not pull her saber from her belt, not to start. She turned as she reached him, kicking back into his stomach. If he wanted to fight, she would fight him on her terms. He snarled when her boot connected, winding him. ‘Fight properly.’ She shook her head, ducking to avoid his half heartedly swung saber. He swung again and again she dodged, knowing the direction and heft of the swing before it began. ‘Why. Won’t. You. Fight. Me?’ He demanded again, and she she stopped, hand extended before her, holding him back so she could speak. ‘You can hurt me. You can try to hurt those I love, I will not hurt you.’ She paused for a moment, finding and meeting his gaze. ‘I won’t do what you’re asking me to do.’ She told him, resolute in her decision. 

 

‘Why?’ The question was less a command now, more a petulant whine as he dropped the saber and fell to his knees. He looked up at her and felt the pain he had hidden within his rage and screaming, tears falling unchecked now. ‘Please.’ He murmured and she knelt too, taking his hands in hers and shaking her head. ‘No.’ She shook her head, leaning in towards him. ‘I can’t.’ Tears fell onto their hands, clasped together. ‘I won’t.’ He didn’t know whose tears they were. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breath, couldn’t move. He needed to stop. That was what he was asking, no more than that. Just an end. Just quiet and nothingness. You can’t be empty when you’re nothing. ‘Ben?’ She asked again as he felt himself dissolving again into the dark and the scream. He took a shuddering breath. ‘I can’t do this.’ He told her. ‘You’ve already lost me.’ Rey shook her head, refusing to listen. ‘Leia- She wanted me to bring you home. She asked for you, at the end. I can’t-’ Ben gripped her hands tighter, eyes widening at the mention of his mother’s name. The acknowledgement that this was why they were here together, each broken and hurting, each trying to find anything to close the gaping wound she had left in their hearts. Rey waited until he could speak again, seeing the war inside him in the small movements of his jaw; feeling it in the tiniest of shifts in his grip. ‘What home?’ He asked eventually. ‘She was it. I don’t have anything to come home to.’ Rey pressed her lips together, willing herself not to sob as they sat their, hopeless, each needing more than the other could give. The silence between them felt as large as the space they knew was truly there, despite their hands clasped together. ‘I’ll do it.’ He told her, matter of fact again. ‘I’ll kill them all. Finn, Poe, that technician girl. Every last one of them. Even you. The longer you let this go on, the darker I become. I’m lost either way.’ Fire blazed in Rey’s eyes at his threats, so calmly offered as unavoidable truth. She closed her eyes and she  _ saw  _ it. His saber through Finn’s chest, one arm outstretched, his hand a claw wringing the life from Rose as Poe’s lifeless form lay crumpled behind him. She shuddered. 

 

‘You would.’ She opened her eyes again, mouth dropping open aghast at the realisation.

 

‘I will.’ He told her, releasing one of her hands to pick up his saber, passing it to her. She refused it, pulling her own from her belt in its place. 

 

‘Ben I-’ 

 

‘I know.’ 

 

He closed his hand over hers around the hilt of the saber. The air crackled as it hummed to life under the pressure from his hand, her hand, their hand. She lifted her gaze again from the saber to meet his eyes and together they drove the saber home.


End file.
